SURVING A CONTEMPORARY MUSIC FESTIVAL
1. You are the Media. Media is the King. Down with the King.
The girl in charge of media registration has a personal vendetta against us – not only is she refusing to give us two press passes, she has also arranged interviews for us with bands we have never heard of. The sour reality of this assignment begins to set in and nasty question arises: Why did we come here again? Our gutter-rock approach to reporting clearly will not fly in this land of demarcated interviews, concentration camp-like access to the artists and insane media saturation. It seems that every second person you meet belongs to this publication, that radio station or some never-before heard of social networking site. And they all strut around with their cameras and a sense of purpose, squabbling and bickering over scraps of coverage, bent on blowing this event out of any respectable proportion. We medicate heavily and come to the conclusion that this pro-environmental circus has been rigged; and not in favour of any kind of honest reportage. The recipe is simple – invite as many media outlets as possible, make them feel a little special via an utterly useless ‘media area’ and they will, spurred on by the presence of so much competition, trip over their own feet to sugar-coat and praise the event. If a thousand people say that it was shit, it only takes one article to prove them wrong. We are not fooled by this kind of trickery and swear to each other a blood oath to say things as we see them, up to the point where we are no longer able to see at all.
The pretty and decietful face of the media
2. When in danger, always head towards the water.
The second day begins with miserable heat and a brutal hang over. The previous night’s line up left much to be desired, but the drink was cheap so it all evens out. We struggle to keep down our Breakfast Burritos, nothing more than eggs and bacon in pita bread, as we stake out one of the few shady spots near the reservoir. The festival crowd rouses itself slowly, appearing first in staggering groups, then in a steady stream. Soon they all learn to fear the heat and the grassy banks become a metaphorical blood bath. As everyone shoves and scrambles for space, a group of guys brave the waters. Male bonding is so not on – the sight of grown up men splashing with the delight of five year olds nearly parts us with our burritos. Spurred on by this spectacle, the crowd plunges in – girls in bikinis, guys in bikinis, an over-zealous lifeguard on what appears to be a paddle board and perhaps the hottest girl of the festival, on a old school wooden surfboard. Of her, we take a picture, and scurry away before things turn ugly.
Male bonding is SO not on
The hottest girl of the festival
3. At a good festival, children are never far and always a good idea.
The psychedelics kick in, the festival picks up and suddenly we are surrounded by children, children, children. It’s like a bad zombie flick spoof. We aren’t talking about hippie children, those abound everywhere and are a lost cause – born with glands that secrete LSD as soon as they hear trance. Normal looking kids, from toddler to annoying brat, they are running around as the adults guzzle beer, smoke dope and generally act like kids themselves. Why would anyone sane bring their impressionable offspring to such depravity? Amid rumours that Roman Polanski is prowling the festival grounds in search of fresh victims, we scream in our heads: ‘The horror, the horror!’ We meet a couple with a pram and wonder if they are smuggling drugs in it or if they, just like the rest of those who came here with children, are clinging onto their fading youth a bit too desperately.
Even Optimus Prime hates children
4. When the music starts playing, all you will hear will be ‘vagina vagina vagina’.
We stand amazed at the fields of blooming pussy around us. It seems that every pretty and semi-pretty girl from around the mountain has made a pilgrimage here. Admittedly the only reason to actually come here, unless bound by journalistic duty, is to get ass. The tent next door is crammed full of virgin, eight of them, though the number fluctuates. Doing some quick math, that puts anywhere between thirty and sixty-four semen receptacles within a fifteen meter radius of our sleeping grounds. Hunting in the daisy fields is much like hunting in the savannah: locate the weak one in the herd – usually swaying a little too much to whatever crap band is playing; approach and begin lying – how much you love this band, how you know them personally, how you were actually in the band at some stage; flash your media pass and, if you work for One Small Seed, drag the meat back to your magazine’s snazzy tent, club it into submission with pumping house music and have your way. Clean up. Repeat. Glorious.
Girls girls girls
5. The reason they are called ‘gems’ is because they are fuck rare.
Who would win in a fistfight between Johnny Cash and Death Cab For Cutie? It’s a trick question because the answer is: Wrestlerish. The Pretoria-based band rocks in the mellowest of ways, yet with an underlying urgency and fever. Despite it being eleven in the morning, the people gather and begin dancing. We’re too fucked to move but keep wondering how does a voice like that come out of a man-bear like that? Their show is so good that following acts pale in comparison, until Dan Patlansky takes the stage and begins coaxing out female orgasms with his dirty blues riffs. He is part of the rock n roll revival that seems to be taking place and, when we ask him what drug he is if he had to be one, he says ‘cocaine’, though he is clearly mescaline. Later we find ourselves dancing to the dinosaur sex music of Desmond and the Tutus, their vocalist resembling an anorexic veloceraptor as he spazzes through their set of tight and infectious indie rock. Sadly they are one of the few bands on the bill with any kind of stage presence. Thus the grand total of watchable bands, excluding the electro fiends, this weekend amounts to a staggering ‘three’.
The safest way to smoke dope in the daisy fields
6. Who brings questions to interviews anyway?
We suddenly realize that we are in the middle of an interview with The Plastics. How? Where? The whole notion of formal interviews with the bands seems absurd. How do you squeeze any non-processed information out of four strangers in a space of ten minutes, before their manager pimps them away to then next media hustler? Should we be feeling used, or they? The Cape Town indie-rock outfit before us begs for questions but the only thing going through our heads is ‘you guys aren’t biodegradable, how the fuck did they let you in here?’ They tell us they are really excited to be here, excited to be rocking out, excited at how things are going for their band and that their favorite psychedelic is marijuana. Fruitful. They also say that their next album is going to sound like Radiohead and we are only 50% certain that they are joking. We leave and day dream about being able to spend a whole day with a band, to get to know them, to find out what their music is really about, but alas such are not the ways of modern Media.
Filthy nature, dirty panda
7. The main stage WILL fail you.Their religion is bass and they are currently saving our souls from the stagnation of the Saturday night main stage line-up. P.H.Fat throw down beats that break your face on the pavement outside your house at 3am in the morning. While Just Jinger and Freshly Ground bore people just 50 meters away, at the electro tent we finally put our finger on the pulse of this festival. This is where the real music hides and the hordes feel it, getting down like electro-grime animals. No room for contemporary pretentiousness or limp rock appeal here, just bass, half-sane raps about ESKOM, mushrooms and DMT, neat gin and raw energy. We lose all notions of humanity and turn into manic beasts, though still better than the beasts outside the tent, cooing radio serenades to Goldfish. Surely this is what the whole experience should be about – complete suspension of society’s norms, descent into the primal, partying hand in hand with brutal human nature? Then why do the organizers flirt with sophistication, attempt at class and keep patting us on the back for ‘throwing the rubbish away and helping the environment’?
How friendly is the environment really?
8. Nature is an umbrella for the soulless.
We are broken and destroyed after the two days, but not any closer to understanding the meaning of this gathering. It’s definitely not good music, nor is it any kind of awesome vibe – the crowd being a motley bunch of jocks, preps, upper-class yuppies, contemporary art fags and only a smattering of real rock n roll kids. Perhaps the organizers throw the shawl of eco-friendliness over this fest exactly for that reason – there simply isn’t a focal point to it, just a pretense to charge people. By the time we leave, we are so over this artificial ‘nature’ that on our way back we run over a tortoise. It pops with a satisfying crunch. God, we hate the environment.
Photos by Sonja Myburg
Tags: Cape Town, Music Festival, Rocking The Daisies, South Africa
64 divided by 8 = 8…
so with this logic, there should have eight “receptacles” per person:
1. left ear
2. right ear
3. left nostril
4. right nostril
5. mouth
6. vagina
7. anus
8. ????
i guess technically an eye would be possible, but then that would encompass both left and right eyes, in which case it would be a total of 9 orifices per virgin. in which case the real total should be 72.
also, ear and nostril holes are really small.
You have the bitter attitude of a jaded media writer but you do it in a way that is actually so very enjoyable to read, its nice to hear about the parts of an event that I actually care about! Thank you. And don’t worry about the environment, as long as we continue to use our “eco-friendly” grocery bags we are still enabled to drive our obnoxious SUV’s without people looking down on us.
Max, always a pleasure…
what about the belly button?
T’sall about the urethra, friend.
You muppets couldn’t scribble your names on a toilet door with a koki pen.
For fuck’s sake, if you’re gonna release a Vice in South Africa, get someone who can actually write.
Sigh. This is more embarassing than that Ras guy singing at the Rugby. Very 1997, to be polite.
ah, keep that sweet sticky love cuming.
perry, my dear, feel free to send your literary genius works to us anytime
by lumping those wannabe US3 clone thin beat lamers, Goldfish, in with the like of PH et al, ur just showing your lack of true knowing. Sounds like your article was written by ur kid sister.
Agreed on the freshly ground and just ginger comments. total bogwash they are. instand aural puke.
I’ll bet you still ended up rubbing it out in the tent though, cos as many girls as there may have been, I doubt any of ‘em woulda wanted to knob a twat like this writer.
Perry,
Do us a favor and die!
Even better - turn on S.A.B.C news and kill your self that way!
This is Rock n Roll journalism to the MAX!
Hunter’d be a proud!
More Fire!
S.A Rocks - and so do our tortoise squashing, acid munching, Hippy hating - Rock n Roll Writers!
You are the true essence of what Vice was initially intended to be!
goldfish sucks, ph kicks dick, isn’t that how it’s said?
Awesome! Amen!
RTD… as in that thing that happened from the 8th of October? Sheesh, way to go with being on the pulse of African street culture.
Dig what you’re trying to do with the writing. Not sure if this whole Us versus Them (cool kids versus hippy/mainstream losers) thing will take hold in a market/culture as small as ours, but I guess someone should try.
aaa…a very clever, cynical Hunter S. Thompson take on a music festival..brilliant..a real joy to read..
Please keep this up…and next time, steer clear from the “brown acid”..
Anton, In the immortal words of Lt. Columbo ” there is just one more thing” .. Hunter could actually write.
I have seen more Gonzo in the Muppets Christmas special !
Really enjoyable article Max. Will certainly be reading more of your pieces. Is your offer to Perry open to anyone?
Thomas please stop riding Hunter S’s dick like almost 90% of South Africans who pretend to write.
are these the best photos you took. they are kak. mahalas review is better. and this article is so late. eish vice sa. we hoped for too much
This pseudo-cynicism fails to excite and its bad journalism to boot. The simple things like thr running order of the bands is wrong (patlansky was on before wrestlerish) so how can we believe anything else. There is no doubt that you got messed up but unfortunatly you didn’t do your job as well. The reason you don’t mention other bands is because you didn’t see them, not because you hate them. Preppy kid who hates everything is a writing style which has been massively over done. Mainly by “my chemical romance”. I am going back to the UK magazine where they actually know what is cool at the moment.
i’m with Niel there.
and btw, which Hunter? (though both apply, really)
IM SORRY THIS IS SO LAME RATHER JUMP OFF THE TWIN TOWERS IF ITS STILL THERE, THEN READ THIS HORSE SHIT
hector - hate to decend to such pettyness - but you are one lame bastard - wrestlerish was the 2nd band on saturday morning…from around 11:30, Dan Patlansky played at 3pm on saturday. don’t know how time works where you from…and trust me, my friend, we watched 80% of the bands…they were just too shit to mention.
as for everyone loosing their shit about the Hunter angle - what can we do when the world is STUCK IN GONZO???
This is exactly how i experienced the festival. It is a bunch of southern suburbs rich kids going to a rock fest. The music caters for them as well. If you want to go to a rock fest, go to Ramfest or Oppikoppi. The blood flows.
Oh, and i do enjoy the vice mag and this article. I don’t know if it is because I am a “cool kid” or just open minded enough to understand what they are doing. Telling it how it is.
Digusting photos get ruid of it its embarracing!
I completely agree with Donmulto.
I didn’t even bother going, the friend’s Facebook photo’s afterwards proved my views of the festival correct.
LOVE to hate. so enjoyed this.
the article and the comments.
Its been so long since Hunter prime, millions of people have been drugged up since. How can you still say anyone who writes under the influence is imitating him. Thats like saying anyone who writes in English is imitating Shakepeare. That a magazine will publish a story that is open about drug use and be able to sell advertising just shows how mainstream and acceptable this style of wrtiting is becoming.
I’ve been to both Ramfest and Oppikoppi. I found them to very white trashish. No one has to agree with me.
When Ben Trovato first started writing - the Cape Times was flooded with complaints about how bad his writiting was. He also got kicked off GQ. I think he’s fuckin great.
Sheeesh! Bud, thank god you are the minority of the population with your painful negativity and pessimism its depressing. YOU are a hater! you hate the norm and rebel every chance you get! why? whats the point? no-one cares what the minority thinks anyway.
The festival was the greatest 3 days of my year. Over and Out
and yeah I give a fuck about the environment, when you grow up and realise your legacy will be living in the fucked up world - you will too.
oi sorry there MAX, yeah I didnt read the Goldfish comment correctly. Glad you think they suck massive donkey dicks as well. ok, I actually enjoyed the article. It was a good read, and the amount of ADD I have at the moment that says a lot. To the bunch of tossbags above calling this ‘hating’, hell fuck yeah, of course its hating. thats the point. its because most tards on this planet are watered down spineless douchebags who go with the flow of mediocrity. Bunch off pissbags. To Mike, your little ‘environment’ comment is so futile and hairy man. Firstly, get off the fucking internet, cos it’s oil fuelled, and stop driving your mom’s shitty car, also use lesstoilet paper when ur stroking your little pal. Please be sure not to procreate Mike, because THATS the best way to ensure the future wont end up being a wad of crud.
Hey, who here votes for Mike as ‘biggest douchebag for November’?
I got really bored reading this. If you haven’t got anything good to say then be more entertaining not saying it! And maybe you can tell us why you don’t like bands? Freshlyground were probably the best set in the whole festival, they brought hardcore rockers to tears, so what exactly about their set do you find comparable to musty ginger?
Amazing Max.
I hate goldfish.
Thought the festival was utter rubbish. Felt like i was surrounded by the dreaded old biscuit mill ‘young’ moms and dads and 30 something ad agency drovel all vegans and smirking bastards laughing and smiling at all the tremendous fun they were having at this ‘ab fab’ party dahling. fuck off. go back to fucking vida cafe on kloof street you exhausting cunts. Max, well done soldier. I was there. I know how rough it was. We made it through. just barely. my dexter insticts were on the verge of release, i was worried i admit. the best part of that whole party was the dope i had, and was from town, so in fact had nothing to do with that horrible gathering. I’m not sure what classifies that as a music festival. felt like i was stuck in car full of camps bay cunts with 5fm blaring in 40 degree heat in the middle of the fucking desert. good times. next rtd im at home on the couch, watching a mindful film, eating a fucking pizza, falling asleep with a blunt in hand, thats escapism. alright, blah blah blah. point made. Oh and yes, Mike sounds like the ideal victim for my dark urges. the knife is sharp.
DANCE PUPPETS DANCE!!
let rip your agression onto the pages like a wet fart.
voice YOUR opinion fuckers…
i like vida on kloof
i like you Roxzy.
Good article Max, this is exactly the reason i didnt go. RAM fest is best Oppikoppi second and if you really want to play eco friendly and all go to Up the creek - they know how to pick a good lineup of entertainers and musicians … real musicians with imagination.
I spoke with a wsie young man recently that said: a party isnt a party without meat.
To all softcocks GFY MOFOs !
and thanks for voicing YOUR opinion too Sonja.
Septic you are so right. that biscuit mill crowd makes me sad that I gave up leaving burning bags of dog shit on peoples’ doorsteps. festivals like this should just go full on ‘douche’. dont invite the decent acts (the mix n blends, danks PH’s of this world) and rather just fill the entire line up with the usual saccharine vomit like goldtits, freshlygrunt and dont forget to invite the Parlotones too. Then Justjizzer and them can have a little tent sesh after they rape everyones ears and eyes. Best part about that idea is we’ll have 1 weekend a year that you can go out and not have to keep ur hand in your pockets for fear of launching into a full on scathing attack.
btw- fuck you i like vida on kloof, even tho their service is worse than sheeite
I prefer Ramfest, I also like Vida. What a bastard child I am.
I also care for the environment even though my parents fucked it up, not me.
To set the record straight - Vida makes good coffee. Undeniably so. The cringe factor lies in the people that infest the place. The sunglassed ‘look at me i’m wealthy attractive and oh so cool’ pose that meets you as you walk in from the dirty street tickles me in unpleasant places. But good coffee, yes. (I believe i may have just sold out according to my own laws. Fuck it.)